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CBC TV showed footage from inside the Tanta church, where a large number of people gathered around bodies covered with papers.

No one immediately claimed the attack, which comes a week before Easter.

Grand Sheikh Ahmed el-Tayeb, head of Egypt's Al-Azhar - the leading centre of learning in Sunni Islam - condemned the attack, calling it a " despicable terrorist bombing that targeted the lives of innocents".

A local Islamic State affiliate claimed a suicide bombing at a church in Cairo in December that killed around 30 people, mostly women, as well as a string of killings in the restive Sinai Peninsula that caused hundreds of Christians to flee to safer areas of the country.